soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2023-09-29 01:40 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2023-09-29 01:40 pm
feelings about characters
The difference between:
is so interesting to me. what causes these differences in response?
some examples for me of each type:
Actually, doing this exercise of listing out the examples has allowed me to figure out some guidelines for myself on how this tends to work.
Category 1 characters are people who manage to be both charming and terrible, and the kinds of terrible things they do are ones that aren't, like, automatic squicks.
Category 2 characters are ones who are appealing and interesting in some way while still being terrible, but do their terrible things directly to a character I love. (category 2 characters can sometimes become category 1 by being charming ENOUGH to make up for who they're being terrible to.)
Category 3 characters are ones who do terrible things while also being personally unpleasant, or do the kinds of things that viscerally upset me too much for me to be able to engage with them in an enjoyable way.
Category 4 characters are ones for whom the narrative framework doesn't actually fully understand the ways in which they are terrible, and treats them like I as the reader/viewer should be finding their terrible actions relatable and excusable or even charming. OR, they are characters who would otherwise be category 5 for me, but fandom looooooves them and over time I get irritated with the degree of attention they get over characters I personally find more appealing.
Category 5 characters are ones I just find endlessly uninteresting on any level. Occasionally these are category 4 characters who belong to a fandom I no longer care about to the least degree.
Does splitting characters into these categories align with your general approach? are there differences in terms of what makes a character fit into a category, for you?
- a character who may be terrible but you love anyway
- a character you love to hate
- a character you hate
- a character you feel quite energetically about how little you care about them
- a character you just can't muster up the energy to care about at all
is so interesting to me. what causes these differences in response?
some examples for me of each type:
- Methos (Highlander), Prince Yu (Nirvana in Fire), Ling Wen (TGCF), Zhu Chongba (The Radiant Emperor duology)
- Jun Wu (TGCF), Philip Ashley (My Cousin Rachel), the gentleman with the thistledown hair (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell), Captain Prope (The League of Peoples series)
- Monsieur Thénardier (Les Misérables), Aunt Irene (Jane of Lantern Hill), Jin Guangshan (MDZS/CQL), Xue Yang (MDZS/CQL)
- Pierre Bezukhov (War & Peace, The Great Comet), Kylo Ren (Star Wars), Jervis Pendleton (Daddy-Long-Legs)
- anyone who would belong in this category can't be listed because I've erased them from my memory
Actually, doing this exercise of listing out the examples has allowed me to figure out some guidelines for myself on how this tends to work.
Category 1 characters are people who manage to be both charming and terrible, and the kinds of terrible things they do are ones that aren't, like, automatic squicks.
Category 2 characters are ones who are appealing and interesting in some way while still being terrible, but do their terrible things directly to a character I love. (category 2 characters can sometimes become category 1 by being charming ENOUGH to make up for who they're being terrible to.)
Category 3 characters are ones who do terrible things while also being personally unpleasant, or do the kinds of things that viscerally upset me too much for me to be able to engage with them in an enjoyable way.
Category 4 characters are ones for whom the narrative framework doesn't actually fully understand the ways in which they are terrible, and treats them like I as the reader/viewer should be finding their terrible actions relatable and excusable or even charming. OR, they are characters who would otherwise be category 5 for me, but fandom looooooves them and over time I get irritated with the degree of attention they get over characters I personally find more appealing.
Category 5 characters are ones I just find endlessly uninteresting on any level. Occasionally these are category 4 characters who belong to a fandom I no longer care about to the least degree.
Does splitting characters into these categories align with your general approach? are there differences in terms of what makes a character fit into a category, for you?
no subject
Yes, this pretty much sums up different kinds of feelings, except that I'm not sure I'm entirely understanding what you're saying with a character you feel quite energetically about how little you care about them. It sounds like maybe these are characters you mostly resent? Not because of their own actions but because of the narrative or fannish attitude towards them? So...you hate them on a Doylist level and not a Watsonian? Because I can understand that.
no subject
Characters only tend to fall into my category 2 if they're over-the-top gleeful villains who are fun to watch on screen (and, less often, read on the page) — characters like the mayor in Buffy's third season.
no subject